


Sanitation

by themadlurker



Series: misc. tumblr ficlets [5]
Category: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Genre: Canon Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Finn is Not a Space Janitor, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Gen, Pre-Canon, fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:00:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28162821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadlurker/pseuds/themadlurker
Summary: "Sanitation" is what they call it, this thing they're trained to do.How is he supposed to look a Hero of the Rebel Alliance in the eye and tell him what being on a "sanitation squad" really means? So yeah, sure. Garbage disposal. He can live with that.
Series: misc. tumblr ficlets [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062464
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Sanitation

**Author's Note:**

> i just... han fucking solo makes that one joke about garbage chutes but _I don’t think that’s what sanitation means_

finn was trained from birth to be a soldier. no, not a soldier - soldier isn't the right word for what the first order wanted. trained to be part of an extermination squad. the kind that walks in with ten times the numbers they need, not to attain a military goal, but to make a _point_

and maybe he questioned it, sometimes, alone with his thoughts in the dead of night, when he was FN-2187, one more alphanumeric unit in a vast system of "order" - maybe he wondered what this "order" was they were bringing to the galaxy, maybe he had questions he would have asked if he didn't know just how dangerous questions were

he'd lived his life in the absolute knowledge that conforming was the way to survive, and those who didn't — didn't

...but then he gets sent out, on his first non-training mission and—

'you're ready' they say and maybe he believes it

maybe he believes the doubts will fall away like they say they will

he knows how to handle a gun, his marksmanship is top of the class, 10/10 for accuracy on target dummies he knows are nothing but pictures on a canvas

all aspects of his training have been successful. he knows what he is expected to do. he knows that disobedience is death.

they are counting on him not to see the population he is sent out to 'sanitize' as human. as worthy of life.

(he's force sensitive. they weren't expecting that.)

he never thought about the force, wouldn't have accepted (or wanted to) put himself in the same category as Ren, as those other inscrutable figures who seem to direct every breath and movement of his universe. the force is even more obscure, the ultimate terrible mystery, everywhere and nowhere.

(finn never thought the force could be anything but terrible, when it gave men power to do such terrible things)

so he didn't know what it was when he heard the screaming

he wasn't supposed to hear the screaming. he wasn't supposed to _feel_. they'd promised.

but he does.

he can feel it when the lives blink out. his fellow troopers. the others, too. the ones whose lives don't matter. the people they were here to... sanitize.

there's nothing clean about it. there's blood on his pristine white helmet from a dying soldier on his squad, and there's screaming in his head long after the hisses of static that make it through the filters fade away. Dampened screams of the dying echoing in his head impossibly loud and terrible, every part of Finn's soul screaming wrong wrong _wrong wrong wrong_

the thing that will keep him awake at night, for the rest of his life, is wondering

if he hadn't heard the screams inside his head

if the helmets had done their job, muffling all exterior sound except the commands of their mission leader in his ear

would he

_would he_

it keeps him awake at night, wondering what kind of a monster he could have become.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted on tumblr](https://borninthecold.tumblr.com/post/143561012846/i-just-han-fucking-solo-makes-one-joke-about)
> 
> Finn is a gd storm trooper, OK?


End file.
